suppose that is a selfish feeling. But it is so hard!"

"My poor darling!" was all that Doucebelle could say.

"Father Bruno said, that so long as we kept saying, `My will be done,'
we must not expect God to comfort us. Yet how are we to give over? O
Dulcie, I thought I was beginning to submit, and this has stirred all up
again. My heart cries out and says, `This shall not be! I will not
have it so!' And if God will have it so!--How am I to learn to bend my
will to His?"

Neither of the girls had heard any one enter, and they were a little
startled when a third voice replied--

"None but Himself can teach thee that, my daughter. If thou canst not
yet give Him thy will, ask Him to take it in spite of thee."

"I have done that, already, Father Bruno."

"Then thou mayest rest assured that He will do all that is lacking."

That night, Bruno said to Beatrice,--"That poor, dear child! I am sure
God is teaching her. But to-day's news has driven another nail into her
coffin."

Would it have been easier, or harder, if the veil could have been lifted
which hid from Margaret the interior of Gloucester Castle? To the eyes
of the world outside, the young Earl behaved like any other bridegroom.
He brought the Lady Maud to his home, placed her in sumptuous
apartments, surrounded her with obsequious attendants, provided her with
all the comforts and luxuries of life: but there his attentions ended.
For four years his step never crossed the threshold of the tower where
she resided, and they met only on ceremonial occasions. Wife she never
was to him, until for twelve months the cold stones of Westminster Abbey
had lain over the fair head of his Margaret, the one love of his tried
and faithful heart.

Having now completed the wreck of these two young lives, His Majesty
considerately intimated to Richard de Clare, that in return for the
unusual favours which had been showered upon him, he only asked of him
to feel supremely happy, and to be devoted to his royal service for the
term of his natural life.

Only!

How often it is the case that we imagine our friends to be blessing us
with every fibre of their hearts, when it is all that they can do to
pray for grace to enable them to forgive us!

Not that Richard did any thing of the kind. So far from it, that he
registered a vow in Heaven, that if ever the power to do it should fall
into his hands, he would repay that debt an hundredfold.

The two chaplains of the